Customer Mania! by Kenneth Blanchard It's Never Too Late to Build a Customer-Focused Company

In Customer Mania!, Ken Blanchard, one of America's biggest bestselling authors and inspiring business leaders, writes of the key to customer service—creating a people-oriented, performance-driven, customer-first organization.

Customer service is the single most pressing problem for business managers and people in any service or sales operation, especially at the retail level. In fact, many experts believe that you build a business from the customer up. With coauthors Jim Ballard and Fred Finch, Blanchard explains why the customer is the right starting place from which to build a successful business. By drawing on examples from the world's largest restaurant company, Yum! -- owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W Restaurants -- the authors explain how any company, large or small, can develop a unified, people-first, customer-oriented culture. Packed with practical insights, Customer Mania! emphasizes four critical steps:

• Set Your Sights on the Right Target. The bottom line grows from taking care of customers and creating a motivating environment for your people. • Treat Customers the Right Way. Determine the kind of experience you want your customers to have as they interact with every part of the company. • Treat Employees the Right Way. Use strategies ranging from smart hiring to training and development to managing performance and creating a recognition culture. • Build the Right Kind of Leadership. You can't do it all yourself, so let your people put their own brains to work and then support them all the way.

By relying on these concepts, businesses everywhere can cultivate passionate and engaged team members who contribute to the company's overall success. From CEO to middle manager to the person facing the consumer, Customer Mania! is a vital tool for enhancing their experience -- and their customer's.

Kenneth R. Blanchard, PH.D., M.D. is an endocrinologist certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Endocrinology and Metabolism. Dr. Blanchard practiced general internal medicine until 2000 and now concentrates on thyroid disease and menopausal hormone replacement therapy. He has been in private practice in Newton, Massachusetts since 1976.